For example, in a manufacturing process of semiconductor devices, a photolithography process is performed by a coating and developing system including a plurality of apparatuses such as a resist coating apparatus, a developing apparatus, a heat treating apparatus and the like. The coating and developing system has a transfer mechanism for transferring a wafer to each of the apparatuses.
The transfer mechanism has a transfer arm for holding the wafer thereon, and, for example, the transfer arm moves three-dimensionally in forward-backward, left-right, and up-down directions to transfer the wafer to each apparatus.
However, in case that the wafer is not transferred to a preset position in each apparatus, the delivery of the wafer or processing of the wafer may not be performed properly, for example. For this reason, when starting the coating and developing system, for example, it is checked whether or not the transfer arm has transferred the wafer to the preset position. In the event that the wafer is not transferred to the right position, the transfer point of the transfer arm is adjusted.
Patent Document 1 discloses an example method for adjusting the transfer position, wherein the method involves the steps of holding a trajectory-detecting wafer having a CCD camera by the transfer arm; transferring the trajectory-detecting wafer by the transfer arm; and detecting a transfer stop position of the transfer arm by the CCD camera.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2003-243479
However, an optical apparatus such as the CCD camera needs to have a sufficient thickness in a vertical direction due to the necessity of an adjusting mechanism of a focus, a focal length or the like. For this reason, as for an apparatus having a transfer port with a reduced opening size due to the influence of a recent miniaturization, it is impossible to load the trajectory-detecting wafer into the apparatus, and to adjust the position thereof properly, either.